Riverside, MO -
I know the Parkville course got rave reviews, but last year I had bad luck at the Boss Cross races last season, so I was excited to hear about the change of venues for this years races.
Saturdays course looked awesome and fast. The course was mostly flat with some very fast transitions to keep things interesting. There was a short sand run, hill barriers, and then some awesome fast barriers just before the S/F line.
There was a very deep field that showed up for the race, the Tradewind crew was out in full force, KCCX was represented well (though without Joe, Adam or Shadd), plus the Columbia duo of Josh Johnson and Jon Schottler. On the start I got stuck behind a crash on the first corner of the race. I chased up with Bill Marshall to about 7th position over the rest of the lap, and then came in to the fast barriers really clean. I don't know exactly how I pulled it off, but on the remount I managed to hit myself in the nuts very hard, endo, and roll my front tubular all at once. (I morbidly hope that someone got a video of this, cause I bet it looked fantastic)
Anyway, the pits were just around the corner, so I crawled over there and contemplated dropping out. Since I had a spare bike (but no spare nuts), I continued on (very gingerly). I had lost about 15 spots and was now sitting around 25th. The next couple of laps were still pretty painful, and I wasn't riding with much urgency or desire.
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| Photo I "borrowed" from Jon Peck - Awesome shot! |
Finally about 5 laps in I got a second wind, if you will, and made a hard charge to see who I could catch. This was actually quite fun, as I was catching people in groups, going to the front of the group and riding on. By the last 3 laps, I was going full speed again, and made my way up to 6th place for the finish. I was pleased by my recovery, but bummed I couldn't have contested the race a little closer to the front end.
Sunday the course was reversed, plus there was an addition of some more sand. This course was also pretty fast, though probably not as much as Saturday because the transitions were a little trickier. There were now two sand sections, while one was pseudo ride-able, the other was now a must to ride. Again, a strong field in the open race, though the Tradewind guys opted for some gravel riding instead of the race.
To replace my rolled tubular, I borrowed a set of carbon Reynolds wheels with Challenge tires from Bill Marshall.
I got a much better start and was sitting in 6th for most of the first lap behind the KCCX train of Jeff, Tom and Bill, and the Big Shark guys. Through the first sand section, Winkler rode it while everyone else got a bit bogged down. I made it through with Jon and Josh, while Tom and Bill came out just behind us. Josh and I gapped Jon a bit, and we took off in pursuit of Jeff.
Josh was going really strongly for the next couple of laps, I would catch up to him, then he would just open up a bit of a gap through a technical section. It went like this for a couple of laps, with Jeff abount 15-25 seconds ahead of us. In lap 6, I passed Josh coming out of the first sand pit and opened up a little bit of a gap. I saw that Jeff was on cruise control up ahead, but I tried to put in a good effort to close the gap. Josh was back on my wheel quickly, but I tried to just go my pace and hope that somewhere I might lucky and get a gap. Unfortunately, on the second sand pit I had bad exits two laps in a row, and on the second time, Josh passed me for good and put in a huge surge to put me away.
Jeff went on to win comfortably, Josh got second comfortably, then I was third with Tom, Jon, and Bill coming in just a little ways back. Overall, it was the fastest 'cross race I've done yet (Just over 16 mph avg for me).
Hats off to the Boss Cross guys for putting on a great event. A big thanks to KCCX for hooking me up with a set of awesome wheels to race on.
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